The semiconductor device industry has a market driven need to reduce the size of devices such as transistors, capacitors and electrically conductive interconnects in order to produce smaller integrated circuit devices (ICs). Smaller ICs result in improved operational speed and clock rate, and reduced power requirements in both the standby and operational modes. Smaller ICs need thinner dielectric layers, thinner diffusion layers and more closely spaced conductive interconnect layers, such as doped polycrystalline silicon (poly). Producing these closely spaced (finer pitch) poly lines requires improved poly etching techniques. Micro electro-mechanical (MEM) devices may use etched poly patterns as a portion of the device. Reducing the size of MEM devices increases their utility and decreases their price and power consumption in many cases.
It is known to improve poly pitch by use of plasma etch techniques to increase the slope of the etched poly sidewall to approaching 90 degrees, and to reduce the amount of sideways etching that occurs under the edge of the photo resist mask. However, plasma etch processes are slow, require substantial expensive equipment, and may have problems with what may be known as etch selectivity ratios. The etch selectivity ratio is the rate of etching of a first material divided by the rate of etch of a second material. A high etch selectivity of a material layer being etched over the underlying layer is important in IC and MEM manufacture, since it allows increased margin for timed etches by providing what may be called an etch stop. The increasingly small and reliable integrated circuits (ICs) devices will likely be used in products such as processor chips, mobile telephones, and memory devices such as dynamic random access memories (DRAMs).
Thus there exists a need in the art for a simple, inexpensive and uniform poly etch method that has both a high poly etch rate (to decrease manufacturing cost), and high etch selectivity of poly over the underlying single crystal silicon, doped oxide, or other material layers. It is known to etch poly layers using wet chemical etch tanks. Wet etching is simple and inexpensive, but there is an issue with the etch uniformity, both in terms of across the single wafer variations, and in lot to lot variations over time. One reason for this lack of uniformity in poly etching relates to the fact that if a poly layer is exposed to the oxygen in the air, which may be hard to avoid, the surface atoms of the poly oxidize to form what may be called a native oxide. Such a native oxide may be from 10 to 20 Angstroms (Å) in thickness, and the oxide may grow in a few hours. Wet chemical etches that have high poly etch rates and high etch selectivity over underlying oxides may be non uniform since the etching of the poly can not begin until the native oxide, which may be call a cap oxide, is etched (or decapped). Since the thickness of the oxide cap is a variable that depends at least in part on how long the poly layer has been exposed, and the storage conditions, then the amount of time it takes to decap the poly layer before etching begins may result in non-uniform etching.
It is known to place the wafers having the poly layer to be etched in a decapping solution, such as a hydrofluoric acid (HF) bath, prior to placing the wafers in a poly etch bath. However, the wafers must be washed in deionized water (DI water) and dried prior to going into the poly etch bath, and such a washing procedure may cause sufficient native oxide to regrow to again inhibit the initiation of the poly etch. Further, the variations in the amount of time that pass between the end of the decap process and the beginning of the poly etch may again result in lot to lot variations in the amount of poly etched. Yet further, the need to have two different wet chemical baths and the increase in production time and cost make this solution less than optimal. There may also be an operator safety issue in having an acid bath in the same general vicinity as the typically caustic poly etch bath, since acids and bases should not be mixed without safety precautions.